Film Review: The Dark Knight

I will not spoil anything in this review, but to be honest, it’s quite hard to spoil it anyway. Nothing I could say would ruin this film.

But I digress.

Batman Begins was the start of a new era for Batman. He has been through many incarnations, from his original comic strip, the the old TV show, to the Keaton/Kilmer/Clooney years to now. And finally they have got it right.

Batman Begins represented the real and true Batman that Bob Kane always intended. It concentrated around the man that is Batman, Bruce Wayne, and around the reasons why he became the vigilante.

The Dark Knight is the movie that Christopher Nolan was meant to make. Batman Begins was just the beginning.

He has assembled a cast that brings Gotham and it’s dirty underworld to life. Morgan Freeman, Gary Oldman, Heath Ledger, Aaron Eckhardt, Michael Caine and Maggie Gyllenhaal. It’s a perfect cast, because they got rid of Katie Holmes, who basically ruined her role in the first movie.

All the talk has been around Heath’s performance, and I cannot take anything away from the accolades he has received. The maniacal Joker is brought to life like never seen before. Where Jack Nicholson brought the class and the wit of the Joker, Heath brings the seediness and the psychotic. It’s a scary performance in that you don’t even see Heath. We don’t see the man that brought us a gay cowboy, a larrikin school kid or a young modern knight. He consumes the role and scares the crap out of you by how well he does it.

But you can’t let Heath’s performance overshadow the other points of this movie. Christian Bale IS Batman. He works as the Dark Knight is better than as Bruce Wayne admittedly, but ironically Bruce Wayne has always been better as the vigilante than as himself. It’s who he is, and always will be.

Aaron Eckhardt, the man you will likely know as the Tobacco company spokesman from Thank You For Smoking, expertly plays Harvey Dent, the fresh faced newly appointed District Attorney for Gotham City. He is seen as the ‘White Knight’ that is going to save the city.

So what then, is The Batman?

Hence, the title and the moniker that he has assumed over the years. The Dark Knight.

This film was always going to get a 5 star rating from me. I knew it would before I saw it, but I was worried about building my hopes up too much. You never want to presume a movie is going to blow you away. Inevitably you will be disappointed.

I was not disappointed.

I can’t rave about it enough. The action, the acting, the directing, the sets, the music, the cinematography, the writing. Everything. It’s the Batman movie I have been waiting 20 years for. That is when I started to read the comic books.

Batman is the people’s hero, and the underlying theme in this movie is just that. He is the hero that the people need. In whatever form that takes.

This is why Batman is easily the best superhero ever created.

Oh yeah, and check out the bike. It’s freaking awesome.

And this shot of the Joker is just perfect. Exactly how I have always wanted to see him.

This is how he looks in comic form. This is the famous strip from ‘A Death in the Family‘. Note the use of the crowbar.

or The Joker from ‘The Killing Joke’

But when it comes down to it. Batman is the hero.

Norm Breyfogle is my favourite Batman artist. Here’s an example of why.